Of Loyalty and Princesses
by rosebelikov26
Summary: Kurt has sworn to protect Brittany Pierce's life. After running from their school, they're caught two years later & must go back. To continue his guardian training, Kurt must do so under the eye of the school's new guardian. Will it distract him too much?
1. Prologue

Alright, so I hate writing out big, long author's notes, but this one is important. I promise, there will be no more after this.

1. This story takes place in the world of Vampire Academy, a book and series by Richelle Mead. If you haven't even heard of the series, don't worry! The canon laws, politics, and social structure will all be explained within the first few chapters, so if you stick around, I promise it'll make sense.

2. That being said, while this fic will loosely follow the events of the first book (Vampire Academy) and set up the necessary plot points for later books (which will be written after this one because I really like the idea of Klaine in Richelle's world), that means major characters from the book series will not be in this fic. However, if you are a VA fan, it'll be quite easy to tell who replaced who. There will also be some familiar faces popping in and out at different times, so look out for them.

That's about it! Enjoy!

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><p>I woke up to her screaming.<p>

Or rather, I woke up from her loud dreams of blood and fear and the sounds of twisting metal moments before she started screaming and thrashing.

"Britt!" I hissed, throwing back the covers of my bed and diving across the room. I forced her body still and shook her awake gently. I could feel the fear subsiding in her as she slowly woke. "Brittany. Welcome back, love."

She looked around wildly and I let her go. In the corner of my eye and out the window, I saw a shadow move under the tree across the street. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Had we been compromised?

"You're alright," I whispered, pushing a damp piece of hair off her forehead. "You look kind of pale, but you're alright."

"Very funny, Kurt," she muttered, pushing me back enough to sit up.

The shadow across the street moved and goosebumps started trickling down my arms.

I looked at her carefully. She was pale, even by vampire standards, and more so than usual.

"When was the last time you fed?" I asked softly.

Fear struck through her core again.

"They didn't find us," I said, already soothing the thoughts that trickled into my head. "But we should probably leave anyway. Get dressed."

Two and half years ago, Brittany and I had snuck out of our school, St. Vladimir's Academy, and had been living on the run ever since. We moved from town to town, not settling down long enough to lure the guardians to us but not short enough that people would get suspicious anyway. Right now, we had been staying with a couple of college kids in Portland and had just started our senior year of high school. We were so close to freedom that getting caught now would be absolutely horrible.

We had been in Portland for a while, I realized with shock as I shoved myself into the first pair of jeans and tennis shoes I could find. Brittany had already dressed, her stuffed cat tucked under her arm. Her brother had given it to her a long time ago and it was the one thing she held onto for her life.

A pang of guilt rushed through me as we quietly tiptoed downstairs and out the door, car keys in hand. Though thoroughly untrained and slightly out of practice and shape, I was her future guardian. Her parents had specifically requested me after we had become really close throughout our school years. It was my job to protect her from harm above all else.

Getting caught by a team of guardians sent out by Figgins himself and dragged back to school was not keeping her from harm. It was only throwing her back in it.

Chills started running through me as we set off at a brisk pace. I had parked the car a few blocks down which wasn't very smart of me right now and I could feel Brittany's fatigue. I was tired, too - Britt had been having more nightmares than usual lately and they kept me up and awake for a long time.

She wasn't the only one that dreamed of smoke and dying.

About two blocks away, I started feeling uneasy. I may still be a novice by my school's standards, but natural dhampir instincts kicked in and I could tell we were done for. There was on way we could get out of this one.

Grabbing her hand, I started into a jog. "Britt? We're going to have to run. And fast."

If I felt bad about lying earlier, it was nothing compared to the guilt I now felt when her face fell. Brittany was one of the kindest, sweetest girls on the planet, and her hurting anything or anyone was beyond incomprehensible. She would've made Hitler smile given the opportunity.

Running was hard. We were both tired and Brittany needed to feed, something I knew we wouldn't have had time for back in the room. I tripped over my own feet but my dhampir reflexes kick in and I was barely able to avoid falling flat on my face.

We got surrounded half a block away from the car. There were easily twelve guardians, all dressed in the standard black and white outfit, and they seemed to have jumped around us out of nowhere. One of them in the back yanked Brittany into his arms.

"No!" I shouted, and turned and lunged for the guardian. A pair of strong hand grabbed my arms and forced me still. Not thinking at all, I shoved my elbow up into the body behind me and a loud noise of disproval hit my ears when I felt it connect with a jaw.

The hands around my arms turned into arms and around my body and I fought against the grip. Whoever it was had a strong hold on me and I struggled to break free. It wasn't supposed to have ended like that.

"I would stop fighting if I were you," a male voice whispered in my ear and almost immediately, I stopped.

Almost.

I gave it another moment or two before I fell limp in the guardian's arms. He turned me around and let two others grab my wrists tightly behind my back.

The typical stoic mask all guardians wore while on business was in place, but I could tell he was satisfied with finally capturing Britt and me. We were practically wanted fugitives as far as our government was concerned. Nobody just ran away from school.

I wanted to smack all of the arrogance out of him.

His eyes stopped me, though. They were a clear, honey shade of hazel, and were a little below my line of sight. They held the years of an experienced man. I was shocked that such a tiny person was capable of such great strength.

"Thank you. It'll make this whole process a lot easier." His eyes - those captivating eyes I was still struck by - flicked to another guardian in the group. "Hathaway? Radio in that we found them."

"Who are you?" I finally managed to sputter out. I was in no way happy that we'd been caught or that I couldn't see Britt. Her emotions were loud and clear, however, and she kept asking me if we would be alright.

There were times when I desperately wished our mental bond was two-way.

The guardian allowed himself a small smile. "My name is Blaine Anderson. I'm the head of the guardian team sent to find you. Welcome back, Mr. Hummel."


	2. Chapter 1

And so begins the introduction of background characters from Vampire Academy. If unfamiliar names pop up throughout the story, they're from the book this sotyr is based off.

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><p>The car ride to the airport was insufferable.<p>

Brittany kept rubbing the head of Lord Tubbington, not even bothering to murmur to him like she did when she was scared or stressed out. She kept her chin resting in her hand as she stared out the window.

Nobody said a word until we got to a private terminal in the back of Portland's airport. The guardians had a lot of pull with the human world, a concept I never fully understood; I guess we should have been thankful we wouldn't be subjected to getting paraded through TSA.

"Kurt?"

I had been staring at the back of Blaine's head, trying to figure out who he was, when I heard Brittany whisper in my ear.

"Yeah?"

"Are they really going to take us back?"

I weighed my options. Supposing I did manage to take out the dozen guardians surrounding us, there was no way we were getting out of here anytime soon. We'd have to camp out in the terminal, but then that would look suspicious and we'd be locked up in a holding cell until our parents came to get us.

I nearly laughed at the idea.

"Yeah."

"Are you sure there's no way we can go back? I left all of my stuff-"

"They're probably sending a team of guardians to go get all of that right now."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry. I thought we'd be okay here."

"Me too."

At the foot of a set of stairs leading up to one of the Academy's private jets stood Blaine watching us carefully. He pointed at the two of us. "I want them separated. They're probably planning a way to escape."

"So what if we were?" I smirked at him as a guardian escorted me up the stairs.

"Over my dead body," Blaine shot back.

I was about tell him that I'd be happy to oblige when the guardian shoved me up the stairs by my back and told me to can it.

The plane ride was no better and provided less of an opportunity to escape. Not counting the guardians, there was also the issue of getting off the plane - and where we'd land. No, our best option had been back on the ground in Portland in the form of a used, blue Ford Fiesta.

They'd been thorough in their splitting us up. Brittany was in the very front of the plane in a seat next to Blaine, her fingers wringing the stuffed cat's tail as her fear made its presence known in my head. They stuck me in the back with a nameless guardian and then put the remaining ten in between us.

I wanted to cry at this devastating turn of events.

Slowly, Brittany's fear started to take over me; my head started spinning, my breaths got shorter, and claustrophobia filled me every sense until I felt the tug and had no choice but to give into it.

There was no real term for the connection Brittany and I had. Old legends talked of bonds between Moroi and their guardians, but they were written off as myths and the stuff of fantasy. Proving they existed beyond these stories seemed impossible.

Sometimes, the bond would pull at me until I was more or less inside of her. It felt as though I was visiting her body, a guest inside her skin, privy to everything she saw, thought, and experienced. There was no instruction manual for resisting the pull I felt when her emotions got too strong for me to handle and she never wanted to know when it happened; we both felt it was an invasion of her privacy, so I kept quiet when it happened. We were working through this best we could.

As was the case right now. Blaine wasn't making an effort to talk to her, which I found mildly irritating, and she wanted nothing more than to be next to me, hearing my voice telling her that it would be alright and that everything would work out.

It took a few minutes, but I was able to pull out of her head. No part of the experience was ever fun and I stared out the window as I tried to collect myself back together.

A little later into the flight, Blaine traded places with the guardian next to me.

"Were you. . ." He paused, looking for the right words, and I could hear the slight accent in my head. I wondered what his parents must look like and where he was from. Most Moroi and dhampirs came from Russia or Romania; the Pierce family was the only one to come from the British isles and they'd always been smaller than everyone else.

Blaine didn't look like he was from any of those places.

"Did you really think you could take on twelve of us in your condition?"

"My condition?" I repeated, pissed off enough to not look at him.

"When was the last time you ate?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" I snapped.

He sighed. "It was courageous of you to stand up for her like that. Stupid, but stil honorable."

I turned to him, anger in my eyes, and brushed a piece of hair off my forehead. "I'm her guardian. It's my job."

Silence fell over us as he returned the gaze. It seemed like he was trying to figure out what my ulterior motive was - though, honestly, I didn't have one; I just wanted Brittany safe and away from our world - and after a couple of minutes, he frowned and ducked around the corner to get a water bottle.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

We arrived in Hell an hour later. As we were led through the center of the school, I jogged up to the front where Blaine was playing line leader to get some answers. I was fed up with not knowing anything.

"Hey there, Blainers."

I watched him sneak a side glare towards me as he kept walking, increasing his pace a fraction. For someone as short as he was, he certainly had a long stride.

"So I was wondering-"

"Always a scary concept," Blaine muttered under his breath, that unidentifiable accent still lacing his words. So it wasn't fake. I filed that away for later and scowled.

"You're taking us to Figgin's office?"

"That would be Headmaster Figgins to you," Blaine corrected.

"Whatever," I snapped. "He's still-"

Blaine coughed. "Mr. Hummel, I suggest that if you wish to stay here with the princess, you keep your mouth shut." And with that, he pressed his lips tightly together and rounded the corner of the administration building to take us in a side door.

I took his advice only because he'd avoided the cafeteria in the front of the building. The sun was setting, which meant everybody would have been in there for breakfast because it was the beginning of the day for the school. Terms like morning and afternoon were useless in a nocturnal world.

When we got to Figgins' office, I felt a little better. The squadron of guardians left the room, leaving behind Sue, the captain of the guardians at the school, Blaine, Figgins, Brittany, and me.

Figgins was a rarity among dhampirs. Somehow, he'd finagled a position in education administration, though I failed to see any indication of how successful it was turning out for him. Based on his features, brown skin, and thick accent, I would place him from somewhere in southern Asia.

Never expressing any emotion beyond light amusement or timid annoyance, I was shocked to see him staring Brittany and me down with a livid glare hot enough to rival the sun. His mouth was pressed together firmly; he was standing between his chair and desk, practically vibrating. He opened his voice to start in on a lecture with a misguided conclusion when another voice cut him off.

"Brittany."

I whipped my head to the left, shocked to see Victor Dashkov sitting in a chair off to the side. I hadn't noticed him when I first entered; it was careless of me, even as a novice guardian, and I shoved that to the side so I could berate myself later.

"Uncle!" Brittany visibly brightened at the sight of him, and dropped Lord Tubbington in my lap as she passed to wrap him up in a gentle but firm hug.

Prince Victor Dashkov. He was the oldest in the Dashkov family, hence the title, and had been struck with a horrid degenerative disease that made him look about ninety instead of forty. Royal Moroi used family terms very loosely since they were all quite incestuous with each other; so while Brittany referred to him as her uncle, he was more of a close family friend. His daughter, Natalie, acted as a cousin towards Brittany.

He gave us a sad smile when they pulled apart and slowly sat back down, using the aide of his cane and Brittany. "I was devastated when I heard you two disappeared." Then he turned to her. "I promised your father I would keep you safe."

My heart broke for him as I thought for the first time how our running away would've impacted others. Brittany's family were all dead. In turn, it made her the princess of the Pierce family. After the funeral for her parents and brother, I had joked about the alliteration in an effort to cheer her up.

The next best thing she had was Victor, a man nearly on the brink of death. I was genuinely glad to see him. He handled a lot of Brittany's life after it all fell apart and he was something of an adoptive father towards her.

Figgins, on the other hand, didn't care about the heartfelt reunion. "Yes, well, this is all great, but there are more pressing matters at hand to deal with. I'm sorry, Prince Dashkov."

Victor waved a hand and tried to get comfortable in the barely-padded chair.

I knew Figgins quite well in the time I'd spent at school before my Houdini act. My mouth frequently got me in trouble, a testament to the Moroi's lack of appreciation for snark and sarcasm. I had been in his office to know that while he gave great lectures, the punishments never made much sense.

And boy was he on top of his game that night. I had heard it all before - lack of respect for authority or responsibility, recklessness, how we were risking exposing our world, yadda yadda yadda - and I occupied myself with debating if his blackout curtains were glued to the wall like rumor said and if not, my best chances of escaping.

"And you, Mr. Hummel-"

I tuned back in. People didn't waste words on me. I was curious as to what Figgins had to say to me.

"I shouldn't have expected more from you, but taking the last remaining Pierce out into the world to be picked off was the worst thing you could have done! I know you were escaping punishment for vandalizing school property, but you of all dhampirs should know that the Strigoi want nothing more than to kill off the Pierce family completely! You might as well have handed her over to them with a bag of your own blood attached to her neck!"

"I wanted to leave," Brittany interjected. She hadn't grabbed Lord Tubbington from my lap and I could tell despite her unease that she was resisting the urge to reach out and grab him.

Figgins scoffed. "You could have planned the whole thing out, Princess, but the fact in the matter remains that Mr. Hummel let you do it. He broke the sacred oath each guardian must follow by: to protect the Moroi at all costs. He didn't keep you safe and is therefore unfit to protect you correctly in the future."

Fury rising to the surface, I jumped up to my feet.

"I did protect her, something everyone in this room seemed incompetent enough to not do!" I shouted. Blaine and Sue just blinked at my outburst but made no move to restrain me. I wasn't hitting anyone . . . yet.

"I fail to see how taking her out of one of the best-guarded places for the princess to live in is an act of incompetency on my part!" Figgins shouted back, leaning across the desk to get closer to me.

I had nothing in response for that. I couldn't tell them why I did what I did.

Figgins gave a self-satisfied nod. "Then this an easy decision. As a Moroi and a minor, Miss Pierce will continue her education here, but as a dhampir, we have absolutely no need to keep you around, Mr. Hummel."

Gaping, I tried to find words and didn't even relax when Brittany spoke.

Or, rather, cried out. She demanded to know why they would send me away, still holding on to the fact that I was her guardian. At some point, I noticed she had picked up Lord Tubbington.

"I know what your parents wanted, God bless their souls," Figgins firmly stated. "But Mr. Hummel isn't even a guardian! He's still in school, a novice! And based on his actions, he does _not_ deserve the recognition."

"Where the hell are you going to send me?" I asked, unbelieving to what I was hearing. "To my father, in Nepal? Does he even know I was gone? Or my mother? I'm pretty sure it would be considered murder if you did that."

I stared Figgins down, balling my hands into fists to direct my anger somewhere. "Or are you going to go for the popular tactic everyone seems to think of me? That you'll ship me off to Russia to be a blood whore because I'm too much of a girl to be a guardian?"

It was a low blow and several counts, and not just because so few girls became guardians these days.

Brittany sucked in a breath. Before we left, I held a high level of command and respect from my peers, even though they entertained certain judgments of my abilities as a novice because I was a lot more feminine than every other male whose ass I used to routinely kick. It served as a distraction to me about what they really meant by their words.

"Mr. Hummel, you are out of line!" Figgins snapped. He was about to continue on when Blaine's voice broke through the room.

"They share a bond."

That seemed to snap Figgins out of his rage. I turned to look at Blaine - everyone seemed to forget he had been in the room, but I hadn't. Not with the kind of room-filling presence that Blaine had. As he spoke, he had his eyes trained on mine, not Brittany's. I had to remind myself how to breathe under his heavy stare.

"It was obvious from the moment I saw them. The stories-"

"Are hundreds, if not thousands of years old!" Figgins cut in, his anger back full-force. "There is no proof that those things happened."

"All the best guardians shared a bond with their charge," Blaine explained quietly.

"I don't care what children's stories say, Guardian Anderson," Figgins countered.

"Kurt is very gifted and has the potential to become an amazing guardian," Victor spoke up. "Surely it'd be a waste to just throw all of that talent out of the window."

"I agree," Blaine said.

Figgins gave a heavy sigh. "Are you two telling me that he should _stay here_?"

"He might be a handful and not know his place-"

I rounded on Blaine. "And who are you? A subcontract?"

"Guardian Anderson is the princess' _sanctioned_ guardian," Figgins explained.

"Unbelievable!" I threw my hands up in the air. "He's nothing more than cheap, foreign labor!"

The silence in the room was deathly. Nearly every Moroi and dhampir in the world descended from Romania or Russia and as it was, I had no room to talk about being foreign. I hadn't even been born in the United States; my father had to get a dual citizenship for me when he dropped me off at St. Vladimir's when I was a few months old.

My dhampir father had been born in Scotland, though he hadn't inherited red hair and his accent had faded over the years as he moved around the world with his charge. My Moroi mother on the other hand. . . . It was from her that I inherited my flawless, pale skin, multi-colored eyes, and dark, thick hair. She had been a member of the Contas, another one of the twelve royal Moroi families. Last I heard, she was six feet under after being attacked by a Strigoi when her guardians weren't looking.

Figgins turned to me. "See? This is why you are completely unfit to become a guardian! Absolutely no respect or discipline!"

"So teach it to him," Blaine said. The insult seemed to not faze him. "Classes started last week."

"He'll still be terribly behind the other senior novices!" Figgins tried to argue.

"Make him train outside of school hours."

I felt a trickle of hope seep out of Brittany. She gave me a positive smile as if to say, See? It'll all work out.

"And who is going to put the extra time in? You?"

"Well, I-" Blaine abruptly stopped. He had come to a flaw in his logic.

Figgins snorted. "I thought so."

I watched him look at Brittany and me. What did he see? Two pathetic seventeen-year-olds who had run from consequences like the immature freshmen we'd been? Or two brilliant seventeen-year-olds who had sneaked out of a high-security school and forced them to put together a crack team of a dozen or more guardians to come hunt us down for two years while evading human suspicion?

"I'll mentor Kurt," he said at last. "You can find some other punishment for him."

Figgins looked over the group assembled in his office for a long time. I wasn't sure how long it was, but I knew it must have been a reasonable chunk of time because I was starting to get wary of what he'd say.

"I've come to my decision."

Brittany gave me a huge grin at those words.

He looked at me very carefully. "You are to train with Guardian Anderson every second you are not in class. You may only leave your dorm for meals and classes and you are banned from all other social functions. Your enrollment is also probationary. One toe out of line and you're gone."

"It's like you're trying to keep us apart," I noted.

He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "It's this or you leave, Mr. Hummel."

I turned it over in my mind. As far as things could be, it wasn't that bad. I sank back into my chair, weariness washing over me.

Before I said anything, I looked back at Blaine. It was hard to see what his eyes were telling me. To him, I was either an idiot to keep this fight with Figgins going or I was a charity case that he'd been forced into helping. Either way, I tried to pretend that some part of him actually believed I might truly have the makings of a guardian somewhere in me. My eyes flicked back to Figgins who was still standing.

"I'll take it."


	3. Chapter 2

On a really embarrassing note: I apologize for the grammatical error(s) in which I started referring to Kurt with female pronouns. Whoops. It's all fixed. I was able to catch most of them on my read-through, but apparently not all of them. Thanks to those who pointed it out!

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><p>Shocked by the turn of events, I didn't even realize they were sending us off to class until Blaine and Sue dumped me off at one of the guidance counselor's offices. She was an old Moroi and kept glaring at me as I rattled off classes I had taken while on the run. The whole thing took about ten minutes and then I had a schedule and was on my way.<p>

Looking over the classes, I frowned. After having every class with Brittany for the past few years, I had forgotten about our school's scheduling policy: Moroi and novices were split up during the morning for four periods, each working on subject matter pertinent to what their race's role in society was, and then everyone got lumped together in the afternoon.

I looked down at my schedule as Blaine and Sue led me to the gymnasium for my first class. The only class I had any hope of being with Brittany in was my very last class, Slavic Art, an elective that seemed horrible enough to throw recently captures runaways in for the sake of pure torture.

Grumbling, I kept my head down as I walked into the gym. It was a training period, which meant I awkwardly stood off to the side as the other novices dragged out mats. I could've sworn Blaine glanced at me once, as if to say Well aren't you going to go participate? but I couldn't be sure.

Lauren, one of the three only female novices in my year, was the first to spot me. She didn't make a big deal of it and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel comforted or shocked by that. "Well, well, well," she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest when she stopped in front of me. She was big - in the sense that she wasn't fat, but her frame was just humongous and I coud easily hide behind her with all the muscle she'd built up over the years - and her presence nearly overpowered me.

Nearly. I jutted my chin up in the air a little, willing her to try and stand above me. Brittany and I had once run this school and I could see in Lauren's eyes that she was expecting me to be my usual badass self like before.

"So glad to see you've decided to grace us with your company," she continued, a smirk on her lips. "I know we can't all be as great as the Hummel family but-"

"Give him a break, Lauren," came another voice and she stepped aside to let me see that the whole class had stopped what they were doing to figure out what was going on.

The voice belonged to Rachel, a tiny, annoying slip of a girl, and I fet my lips tighten. She always felt her only true physical match was against me and her small size made her more of a ninja than most of the guys might've liked to admit. Last I'd heard, she'd been able to take out four opponents (including Lauren) in three minutes.

For as egotistical as she could be, she was actually kind of sweet. Something akin to a friendship had been forming between us after years of bitter rivalry before I left and I wondered if she remembered that.

"Sorry, Fairy," Lauren muttered, stalking off.

Rachel smiled at me and I focused on her. The stares of my classmates could be dealt with in a minute.

"How are you?" she asked and I felt a rush of gratitude. Not once since this whole mess started did anyone ask me that.

"I've been better." I shrugged.

One of the guys spoke up. "So you're back now?"

"Yeah, Mike, I am." I smiled, despite the snark in my tone. Mike was pretty cool and had gotten me into a lot of parties. "I wouldn't just be standing here by my own choice."

The others started warming up after that and they took a few minutes to try and squeeze information out of me - where I'd gone, why I'd left, what it was like - before the guardian overseeing the class broke up the group and told us to get to work.

"Who's leading?" I asked as Rachel grabbed my hand and dragged me towards a mat in the back corner.

"Artie, I think. Or Finn. Or Eddie. One of those three." She sized me up. "I'm not going to hold back, okay?"

I nodded, dropping down to start stretching.

"Think you'll be able to keep up?" she asked after a few minutes.

At the end of class, I had my answer. Groaning, I rolled over on my stomach.

"I hate you, Rachel."

"No you don't. You're just horribly behind. Here." She held out her hand and I took a good minute to stand up.

"No offense, Kurt, because I'm known for being brutally honest and secretly cutthroat and most people start to tune me out about fifteen seconds after I start talking-"

I waved a hand in her face. "Rachel? Your point?"

"Oh!" She busied herself with folding the mat back up and kicking towards Eddie Castile who had come over to get it. "My point is that I don't think you're going to be ready to graduate on time, let alone the field experience in the spring."

Ah. The field experience. It was the big event that all senior novices looked forward to their entire school career. We would have no classes for eight weeks while we followed a Moroi we were assigned to. Guardians would stage attacks on the Moroi and we'd have to do our best to "kill" them off. The marks we got were probably more important than the testing we went through right before graduation and would play a huge deciding factor in who our post-graduation charge would be.

"I'm putting in extra time," I said, a permanent wince on my face as we left the gymnasium and started across the quad towards the academic building.

"With who?"

"Anderson. Blaine. Whatever his name is."

Rachel's already large eyes grew into the size of saucers as she stopped me and whirled to stand right in my path.

"You're-but-" She looked me up and down.

"What?"

"Anderson's . . . a _god_," she breathed. "There's no other word for him. He's even better than me, though I suppose it's because he's 24 and would have seven more years of experience that I've yet to gain, but when he fights . . ." She bit her lip. "You're going to feel like ground meat when he's done with you. Just because he's short doesn't mean he isn't any less of a brilliant fighter. I heard he's killed six Strigoi. Could you confirm that for me?"

I let out a laugh, internally groaning at the thought of fate being cruel enough to put me with the best fighter since Jackie Chan. "I'll see what I can do."

My second class, Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection 3, didn't go much better. It was run by Stan Alto, a man who loved to pick on anything that breathed the wrong way. Most novices got through his class unharmed but I seemed to be a magnet for things like _Stan Alto_ to happen to me.

His scowl only intensified when he saw me sitting somewhere between the middle and back of the classroom, as close to the door as I could get without looking like I wanted to be anywhere else. He put his clipboard down on the desk in the front of the room and slowly ambled over next to me.

Rachel shot me a sympathetic look from across the room.

"Kurt Hummel." If I was the inventor of sarcasm, Stan was the subject's leading expert. "I am genuinely shocked. I don't recall having a guest speaker planned for months. Have you decided to finally grace us all with your presence?"

The amount of restraint I mustered up to just not walk out was impressive.

"Well go on. Get up there. Share your wisdom with us."

Wishing the floor would swallow me up, I muttered, "What are you-"

"Get up there, Hummel," he ordered, and I practically flung myself out of the seat in an effort to comply. Stan was intimidating and crossing him was like pissing off a starving bear in the middle of a forest where no one would hear your screams.

My heart sank when I saw Blaine standing in the back with a few other guardians. I'd almost forgotten that guardians patrolled classrooms.

I barely noticed Stan walking back up to the front of the room, standing next to me with his arms across his chest.

"Go ahead. Share with us on how you kept Princess Pierce safe."

My hands clenched and unclenched into fists by my sides.

"What techniques did you use?" he clarified. I could sense the balance between how amused he was and the situation was tipping in his favor.

The stupid look I must have given him was like I was asking for more ridicule from him.

"Did you go outside at night? What did you do to keep her safe? Seeing as your standing right in front of me, very much alive, I can easily assume you never ran into any Strigoi."

Stan had always had a tight control over his classroom. Nobody said a word as they watched me get ripped to shreds in front of them. Blaine's expression was unreadable. Even class clowns like Finn and Lauren didn't laugh.

"No," I said, my voice barely an inch or two from breaking. "We didn't go out at night."

"So you slept during the day and guarded at night."

I shook my head.

"Really? That's pretty stupid if you ask me, considering it was a point mentioned hundreds of times over in our unit on solo guarding." He gave me a taunting smirk. "I'm sorry. Silly me. I forgot. We did that in junior year when you were off jaunting across Europe."

"We stuck to the suburbs of major cities right here in the US," I defended. I couldn't tell how effective it was. Not enough, since Stan kept going.

"Well good. At least you knew something. Tell me, why are cities a bad idea for Moroi to live in?"

My mouth gaped, but I couldn't come up with an answer.

Stan nodded, then looked out over the class. "Abrams, answer."

"The large, dense population allows for Strigoi kills to be much less noticed. Humans are murdered, raped, and kidnapped every day, so covering it up is easy." Artie pushed his glasses up his nose and gave me an apologetic look. After a car accident when he was eight where he broke his right leg, he had a bad limp since the leg never healed properly. He still attended training sessions and went through the novice program since Figgins didn't know what else to do with him, but after graduation, he'd most likely end up doing something other than guarding.

"Another thing you missed out on," Stan pointed out. "So while you were playing hide-and-seek with the princess, what methods of surveillance did you use?"

"Me-methods?" I stuttered.

I could tell Stan was growing irritated with me. "Carnegie's Quadrant Surveillance Method? Rotational Survey? Any of those ring a bell?"

Again, I shook my head. I could feel tears building in my eyes - _what a wonderful first day back_, I thought bitterly - but I was steadfast against letting them fall.

"Oh. Right. You missed that as well." He snorted. "Did you even remember to look around when you went outside?"

I bit my lip, shame filling my entire body. "Yes."

"So while you were out, partying it up with your best friend, you've been missing out on important information that you need to know to be even the most adequate of a guardian." Stan shook his head. "You'll be lucky if you manage to catch up enough for the field experience. Get back to your seat."

I didn't look up as I stumbled back to my desk, not wanting to look at Blaine. Talk about embarrassing. Nobody had ever chewed me out so bad like that and it stung.

The rest of my day was marginally better. Whispers and stares followed Brittany and me wherever we went. It turned out the only afternoon class we didn't have together was math, which was just fine by me. Anything beyond simple addition confused the hell out of me.

Fear and despair were all I got when focused on Brittany's emotions. When I chatted with other novices and a handful of Moroi I was on a first-name basis with, she focused straight ahead on a point I couldn't see.

After classes let out, I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the side. I was already breaking my social banishment but after the day I'd had, I didn't care.

"We're leaving."

Brittany pursed her lips together. "Do you . . . are you sure?"

I nodded. "We can do it a second time. It might be a bitch, but I think we could pull it off."

"Kurt. . . ." She looked me up and down. They'd obviously given her time to change her clothes because we'd been forced to shop at thrift stores and the dress she had on looked like it had just come off the rack at Barney's.

"What?"

Biting her lip, she sighed. "I think we should stay. I haven't seen you this happy in a long time. You were actually smiling when you talked to your old friends. Don't tell me you want to get rid of that as soon as we got it back."

Had she been wanting to come back? I suddenly found myself reevaluating the situation. She was right. I did truly enjoy the company of my old friends, especially Rachel - for as much of a friend as she could be - and pulling the first escape stunt had been so, so dangerous.

I looked around, putting my hands on my hips. I saw students all around, enjoying the last few hours of darkness before dinner and sunrise hit.

"Okay," I said.

"Really?" Her moods perked upwards and I stored that away to save for later.

"Yeah. We'll stay. But one condition."

Brittany smirked. "Always the exception with you, Kurt."

"You stay away from the other Royals," I continued, acknowledging what she said.

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

She sputtered. "Because! I have to start networking with them and-and I'm already the head of my family. I can't just throw my future away like that!"

I exhaled slowly.

"I'm sorry, Kurt, but before-"

"Andre was able to do that. But he's dead now, isn't he?" I spat.

A look of hurt crossed her features. "You can be a real bitch, you know that?"

"I know I'm like a teddy bear compared to those other Royals." I fixed her with a serious look.

It was true. Royal Moroi were a special kind of people who could create better drama than a soap opera. They backstabbed each other and bribed their allies in their sleep. It was crazy. Before her brother, Andre, had died, he'd been the one to mingle with those in his class placing. Brittany was forced to take on that role since then; I enjoyed the perks of partying and getting their approval by being something of a daredevil without navigating the messy politics. It had also taken its toll on her, which was why I held up my reluctance to let her go join that world again.

"Fine. I'll just take the middle road or something," Brittany relented. "Happy?"

"Not at all."

I whipped around to find Blaine standing a few feet behind me.

"You're late."

That was directed to me and I knew it. I hoped Blaine wouldn't report me as I turned back around to finish my conversation.

"I think that'll be okay. We'll see how it goes. One wrong thing, though. . . ."

"Go serve your detention," Brittany said, smiling. She playfully shoved my shoulder and left with a quick goodbye.

Silently, Blaine turned around and I had to sprint a little bit to catch up with his fast stride. I opened my mouth to say something witty and biting about interrupting a very important conversation when I felt the familiar tug.

It was vain to fight against it. I found myself in the campus' church, which sat at the head of the quad. Brittany wasn't off to pray, though. She ducked through a side staircase and went up to an attic room I hadn't known existed. Then again, I was a pretty strong atheist myself, so it made sense.

She curled up in the window seat, trying to even out her breathing. Over and over she repeated to herself that I would take care of everything, that nothing bad would happen.

"I have a thing about sharing. Thought you should know."

Brittany jumped at the voice. "Who's there?" she asked, her own voice shaky with fear.

Out of the shadows stepped Santana Lopez. I realized that among the long list of things I had forgotten, Santana was right at the top. Brittany had, too. She was a hardass with a sense of sarcasm to rival mine and terrified everyone. Her father had been a Royal, an Ozera, but her mother had been a non-Royal, which must have been where she got her vaguely Latina-looking features.

"Oh." Brittany straightened up. "It's you."

Santana snorted. "I won't bite you."

"I don't care about that," Brittany snapped.

One thing was drilled into us from an early age: Moroi were alive; Strigoi were undead. Moroi were born; Strigoi were made.

Strigoi could only be made in two different ways: Moroi could kill someone during a feeding, lured into the dark world by the immortality or a Strigoi could do it by force to any Moroi, dhampir, or human with a single bite.

Santana's parents had fallen victim to the lure. They'd been Strigoi.


End file.
